568 Quotes by Viktor E. Frankl

And what about man? Are you sure that the human world is a terminal point in the evolution of the cosmos?

He main retain his human dignity even in a concentration camp. Dostoevsky said once, 'There is only one thing that I dread: not to be worthy of my sufferings'.

By his love, he is enabled to see the essential traits and features in the beloved person; and even more, he sees that which is not yet actualized but yet ought to be actualized. By his love, the loving person enables the beloved person to actualize these potentialities. By making him aware of what he can be and of what he should become, he makes these potentialities come true.

That's where your friend is, floating up to Heaven

At that moment I became intensely conscious of the fact that no dream, no matter how horrible, could be as bad as the reality of the camp which surrounded us

All that oppressed me at that moment became objective, seen and described from the remote viewpoint of science. By this method I succeeded somehow in rising above the situation, above the sufferings of the moment, and I observed them as if they were already of the past.

Man is not fully conditioned and determined but rather determines himself whether he gives in to conditions or stands up to them. In other words, man is ultimately self-determining. Man does not simply exist but always decides what his existence will be, what he will become in the next moment.

The angels are lost in perpetual contemplation of an infinite glory

A human being is a finite thing, and his freedom is restricted. It is not freedom from conditions,but it is freedom to take a stand toward the conditions.